Latest Reports

• Big Blue bets big on Cloud-First Enterprise

  IBM CEO Arvind Krishna’s announcement about a strategic move to spin off their managed infrastructure services business on October 8, 2020 is reverberating across the business and technology landscape. However, keeping the magnitude of the announcement aside, this is in line with IBM’s time-tested modus operandi of divesting slower growth and maturing businesses, such as their exit from the PC business. While this strategic shift is considerably late compared to other players, it is the right move that leverages their Red Hat acquisition to target the fast growing multi-cloud market.

  October, 2020

• Penetration Testing Adoption and Best Practices 2020

  Penetration testing is an important element of IT security best practices. However, by itself, penetration testing is insufficient. It needs to be part of a robust and iterative process, in combination with the other security best practices to make it a formidable defensive weapon. In this report, we look at the maturity of penetration testing as an IT discipline. We assess current adoption trends by organization size and sector.

  February, 2020

• Artificial Intelligence: Should Robots Have Rights?

  In 1950, Alan Turing proposed a test for the ability of a machine to exhibit intelligent behavior that is indistinguishable from that of a human being. Over the 70 years since, artificial intelligence has become more and more sophisticated, and there have already been claims of computers passing the Turing Test. As AI applications, and especially AI-enabled robots, continue their evolution, at what point do humans begin to, in fact, perceive them as living beings? And as this perception takes hold, will humans begin to feel obligated to grant them certain rights?

  October, 2020

• European IT Budgets Rising Despite Pandemic

  In our first annual IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks study focused entirely on Europe, organizations are poised for strong IT operational budget growth despite contending with a global pandemic. Budget increases are set to be well above inflation. European companies across nearly every sector are planning controlled-but-steady IT growth. The outlook for the year is looking strong for IT organizations, even with the coronavirus pandemic—or perhaps, because of it. This Research Byte describes one of the top findings of our European companion to our flagship IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks.

  December, 2020

• IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks 2020-2021: Chapter 1: Executive Summary

  Chapter 1 of our 2020/2021 IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks study provides a detailed analysis of the major findings from this year's study. It also describes the contents of the subsequent chapters, and gives detailed information about the demographics of the study participants and the survey methodology.  (69 pp. 17 fig.)

  July, 2020

• Retail IT Spending Needed for Digital Transformation

  The retail sector is going through a major transformation. Brick-and-mortar stalwarts are filing for bankruptcy or disappearing entirely. E-commerce and the digital customer experience are taking an increasing part of the shopping dollar. And all of that was happening before the COVID-19 pandemic forced major restrictions on brick-and-mortar shopping. Traditional retail is in a “change or die” mode, and the transformation of IT is going to decide who survives. This Research Byte is a brief summary of our special report on IT spending trends in the retail sector, which is available for free download.

  October, 2020

• Agile Not for Everyone

  After a steady rise in recent years, the growth in agile development is starting to taper off. Adoption was flat year over year, and we may be closing in on the ceiling for agile. Agile development is an important tool for organizations with high-level development needs, such as software and cloud providers. However, for companies that do little custom development, agile might not be right for them. This Research Byte explores some reasons for the lukewarm growth of agile among corporate IT organizations.

  March, 2020

• Avasant Digital Forum: The It Modernization Imperative: From Mainframes To Hybrid Cloud

  For decades Mainframes have been the workhorse of Enterprise IT, providing performance and reliability. But now these antiquated systems are an impediment to business agility. As businesses prioritize Digital Transformation, they require an agile and scalable computing platform such as Hybrid Cloud. Enterprises need to modernize their Mainframes and Legacy applications but are often held back by conflicting priorities and transition costs.  

  December, 2020

• Agile Development Adoption and Best Practices 2020

  After more than two decades of maturation, agile development methodologies promise to deliver new systems more quickly, improve software quality, and increase user satisfaction. While adoption remains only moderate in corporate IT groups, agile development continues to gain adherents as organizations seek to respond to a continuously changing environment. In this study, we report how widely and deeply agile development is being embraced by IT groups today, by organization size and sector.

  March, 2020

• In a Year Where Security Is Paramount, Many Drop the Ball

  Computer Economics, a division of Avasant Research has released its major annual study on 34 IT management best practices, and one important category of practices–IT security and risk management–is showing mixed results. This is a bad sign in 2020, considering the changing threat landscape and the ramifications of the pandemic. This Research Byte highlights our findings on IT security best practices, along with an overview of the contents of the full study. The full study analyzes the growth and maturity of all 34 best practices, which are grouped into five major categories: IT governance, IT financial management, IT operational management, IT security and risk management, and application development.

  October, 2020

• IT Management Best Practices 2020-2021

  The best-run IT organizations not only focus their process improvement efforts on those of other departments, they also seek to optimize their own IT management processes internally. In this study, we examine the growth and maturity of 34 IT management practices.

  October, 2020

• Wuhan Coronavirus Shows Need to Include Pandemic Scenarios in Business Continuity Planning

  The Wuhan coronavirus (nCoV2019) rampaging through China has led to a massive quarantine in that country, the temporary closure of hundreds of schools and businesses, and an extensive travel ban. This latest threat reminds us that most IT organizations have not incorporated countermeasures specifically to deal with pandemic scenarios.

  February, 2020